With the advent of smartphones, laptops, tablets and other portable electronic devices, computers and digital communication are increasingly intertwined with our social and vocational lives. There is a desire and need to monitor and control the use and operation of such electronic devices.
A child may now have un-tethered access to the Internet, various communication protocols (e.g. phone, video phone, email, text chatting, and text messaging) and a wide variety of digital entertainment. However, devices enabling such access may serve as a distraction which prevents a child from behaving responsibly. Parents are keen to keep an eye on their children's behavior including communication, travel and what media and information their children are exposed to. Further, parents may want to limit the amount of time their children spend exploring and consuming various electronic media and communicating with friends.
As parents want to monitor and control their child's device use, so too do employers want to monitor and control their employees' device use. Employee time is a valuable resource which may be wasted when an employee uses their portable electronic device for non-business purposes. Similarly, a teacher may want to monitor and control their students' device use during school hours to avoid distractions to the learning process. Further, any user with supervisory responsibility over another user may desire to monitor or limit a person's use of a particular communication device. That said, control of a device which is possessed by the user whose use is to be monitored or controlled is not a trivial matter and can be hindered by a number of factors.
The functions performed by mobile communication devices such as smart phones are increasingly complex and it is becoming more difficult to monitor the operation of such as device even when the person or entity attempting to monitor a particular device is in possession of the device. A mobile communication device may execute applications which unknown to the device user aggregate or disseminate personal information of the device user. Such applications may for example be enabled by a manufacturer of the device, a telecommunication carrier providing phone and network services to the device, the device user, or a computer virus. In any event, it would be desirable to allow a person or entity the ability to monitor and control the operation their own electronic device or the electronic device of another.